A short experiment with creating zoetropes in After Effects. The structure of the zoetrope is interesting because unlike other ways of producing animation, a zoetrope can slow down and stop, giving you a way of seeing the big whirling structure that creates the illusion. I was thinking about the way we talk about war and soldiers and this just kind of came out of that.

“Comrade, I did not want to kill you. . . . But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. . . . I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony—Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?” – All Quiet On The Western Front